1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to a photosensitive medium, and an apparatus for forming or reproducing an image by using the photosensitive medium, and more particularly to such an image forming apparatus wherein operating conditions can be varied depending upon a specific type of the photosensitive medium.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
Various types of photosensitive media are known in the art of optical formation or reproduction of an image. These photosensitive media exhibit different properties, for example, different photosensitive properties upon image-wise exposure to a radiation to form a latent image, and different properties upon development of the latent image into a visible dye image. Accordingly, the optimum operating conditions under which an image forming apparatus is operated differ depending upon the specific type of the photosensitive medium used. For example, the optimum exposing and developing conditions for a given type of a photosensitive medium are different from those for another type. It is therefore desirable to operate the image forming apparatus under the conditions that best suit the specific photosensitive medium. To achieve this desire, it is necessary to control the exposing, developing and other devices of the apparatus according to given information indicative of the optimum operating conditions. For instance, the information for the specific photosensitive medium may be stored into a memory, by the user of the image forming apparatus.
However, the procedure for manually storing the necessary information on the optimum exposing, developing and other image forming operations is not only very cumbersome and time-consuming, but also liable to an error in keying in the information into the memory, which may cause a failure to reproduce the desired image.